Light meters

Logos and factories

One of the consequences of the way the Soviet Union
was structured is that factories were seen as integral parts of the
state rather than as independent economic units. Factories therefore never
profiled themselves, and always remained hidden behind the massive facade of
trade firms and state export. Their products were given generic names like Zorki
or Zenit, and the only way to connect the end products with their manufacturers
was to look at their logos. They were the last glints of independence of
otherwise generic factories.

On this page a collection of the more common logos, at least the ones I was
able to lay my hands on. I drafted all of these myself, so I'd appreciate it if
you didn't copy them without my consent.

Many thanks to Kevin Kalsbeek for sending logos, providing information, and
writing parts of this page. Thanks also to David Tomlinson of the RCCC for indirectly providing some of the
examples I used for drafting.

KMZ

KMZ (Krasnogorskiy Mechanicheskiy Zavod, or the Krasnogorsk Mechanical
Plant), lately also "Krasnogorsky Zavod JSC", is the big boy among the Soviet
camera manufacturers. It was the largest in the Soviet Union and created such
product lines like the Zorkis, Zenits, Horizons and Moskvas. Learn more about
KMZ here.

KMZ's logo is a stylized Dove prism with a light ray passing through. In
Krasnogorsk it was nicknamed the "tombstone". The logo is found on almost all
KMZ products. The first version has no light ray, and was used on the FED-Zorki
until around 1950. The second version was used for thirty years thereafter and
is the most common. The third seems to have been adopted in the late 1970's, and
is still in use. Dove prisms are named after the optician who invented them; not
after the shape of the light ray, as I used to think. (Compare the "gull
wing".)

LOMO

LOMO is short for Leningradskoye Optiko-Mechanicheshkoye Obyedinenie, or the
Leningrad Optical-Mechanial Union. The factory was apparently founded from the
old GOMZ works in 1962. The production facility is based in the former city of
Leningrad, now known as St Petersburg, and was probably the Soviet Union's
second largest civil-optical plant. LOMO created a lot of archetypical and
interesting cameras over the years. LOMOgraphy was a
welcome break to LOMO in the Russian depression of the mid-1990's. Nowadays LOMO
seems to have left all camera production behind (with perhaps the exception of
the LC-A), and is focusing on scientific and industrial grade optics.

LOMO has various logos, the most common of which is the one depicted on the
right. It looks like it says "OMO", but the upside-down V is actually a Cyrillic
L. Some versions of the logo have a ball on top of the L's point, and some an
entire ship.

GOMZ

GOMZ is what LOMO was called before it changed its name in 1962. GOMZ stands
for State Optical-mechanical Plant. The logo above appears on almost all GOMZ
cameras, like the early Lubitel-2, the Sport, the
Reporter, etc.

FED

FED is a camera manufacturer based in Kharkov, Ukraine. The plant is best
known for its many Leica copies, although FED was actually a machine-building
plant in the largest sense of the word. (The product catalog on their website still illustrates
that).

FED had a very flexible logo policy: although almost all cameras are stamped
on the back with the small "swirl logo" shown above, the typography on the
cameras themselves (particularly on the FED-1) has enormous variations.

Zavod Arsenal

Arsenal, based in Kiev in the Ukraine, is known best for cloning some pretty
good cameras: Hasselblads, Contaxes, Nikons and Pentacon Sixes. Most of them
weren't copied directly and were simplified for production behind the Iron
Curtain, but some (the Contax clones in particular) were pretty decent. Arsenal
also created one of the most original of all cameras: the Kiev-10. Of all Soviet camera manufacturers, Arsenal
also has the largest cult following, given their product complement of cheap yet
usable medium format equipment.

The top logo is the plain version that was used in the Soviet era and
engraved on all Arsenal cameras; the bottom one was found on the site below.

MMZ

MMZ: Minsk Mechanical Factory. Founded in 1957, MMZ was located in Minsk,
Belarus, approximately 450 miles SW of Moscow. Initial production was optical
glass and the Smena-2 camera. In 1971, MMZ became BelOMO.

BelOMO

BelOMO: Belorussian Optical and Mechanical Association. Formed in 1971 by the
merger of MMZ and the Vilejka Factory, and apparently Peleng. BelOMO continued
to produce cameras and lenses, cine cameras, accessories, projectors, etc. The
plants may continue to use their original logos on the products produced in each
plant of the association.

Vilejka

Vilejka Factory, or officially OM RUP "ZENIT". In Soviet times it was known
as "Vileiskiy Zavod <Zenit>". Founded in early 1969/70 in Vilejka,
approximately 50 miles NW of Minsk, as a joint venture by MMZ and KMZ to produce
Zenit cameras. The Vilejka Zenits were apparently intended primarily for home
consumption, and earned a poor reputation for quality. Vilejka, has produced the
following Zenit models: E, TTL,
ET, 11, 15, under slightly different designations. Vilejka is apparently still
producing Zenits, i.e. Zenit 130.

Peleng

ZKB: Peleng Company: Russian name "Rogachevskiy zavod 'Diaproektor'"
("Rogachev plant Diaprojector"). Located in Rogachev, Belarus, Peleng was the
lens and possibly optical glass manufacturing facility for BelOMO. It is not
known when Peleng became an independent entity. Peleng continues to make camera
lenses, cine projectors, magnifiers, and other optical instruments.

Voigtländer

This is Voigtländer's old and revered factory logo; resurrected recently on the Bessa series.

LZOS

LZOS (Лыткаринский завод Оптического Стекла)
is based in Lytkarino, 100 kilometers north of Moscow. It was a KMZ satellite
plant: it was included in KMZ's PO (production union). LZOS stands for Lytkarino Optical Glass
Factory, and that is what they're most famous for: for manufacturing various
lenses for KMZ cameras.

UOMZ

Vologda

Vologda Optical-Mechanical Factory. Located in Vologda, approximately 250
miles NE of Moscow. Manufactures photographic accessories, such as lenses. Logo
has been seen by author on 37mm Mir-1B and 200mm Jupiter-21M lenses. This
factory is currently in business, and show lenses on their site, but it is not
clear as to whether these are current production, or new/old stock. Current
production is largely military.

Sverdlovsk

Sverdlovsk is a large factory of exposure meters based in the Ural town of Sverdlovsk. Not much more is known... Its logo is this owl.

VOOMP

VOOMP: Federation of Optical-Mechanical Factories (alternatively: Union of Optical-Mechanical Enterprises). This plant appears to be the original LOMO plant which was renamed VOOMP, but it is unclear when exactly this occurred. There is an alternative logo found on the VOOMP Leica II copy. This "factory" appears to have been an association camera and optical manufacturing facilities, but was also very important for the VOOMP Opytnyi Zavod: VOOMP experimental factory, which apparently was a very important optical and camera development plant from the Soviet planned economy viewpoint.

ROMZ

Rostov "The Great": Rostov Optical and Mechanical Factory (ROMZ). Rostov "The Great" is located about 125 miles NE of Moscow, and is an old religious center, hence the sylized "onion domes" over a lens of the logo. The Rostov logo is usually seen on 35 and 85mm accessory finders for FED and Zorki cameras and their bakelite boxes. Rostov is a military production center, and I have seen this logo on night vision equipment, so it appears this plant is still producing equipment.

ZOMZ

ZOMZ: Industrial Amalgamation Zagorsk Optical-Mechanical Factory. Zagorsk
(now known as Sergeiev Posad) is located about 45 miles NE of Moscow, and is
famous for its monasteries. The plant has produced many accessory lenses for
35mm RF and SLR cameras, and appears to have been associated with KMZ. Current
status unknown.

ZOMZ's current binoculars show that they still use the logo on the right, and
that the factory's trade name is "Kronos". However, the binoculars also have a
large "ZOMZ" name plate on the front, so maybe Kronos is only the name of their
binocular division.

Valdai

Valdai: Valdai Optical-Mechanical Factory Valdai (may be currently known as
Valdayskaya) is located about 250 miles NW of Moscow. Very little is known of
this plant, but it has been a prolific producer of lenses for KMZ, and Zenit
BelOMO. The SLR lenses bear the Helios name, and this plant has also produced
many accessory lenses for RF cameras. For many years, this plant confused
collectors, who dubbed it "Shishkebab Factory". Current status unknown. My
thanks to Marc James Small, and Oscar Fricke.

KOMZ

KOMZ: Kazan Optical-Mechanical Factory. Kazan is located about 435 miles due
East of Moscow, in what was, or is, the Autonomous Republic of Tatars. Kazan has
manufactured a wide variety of 35mm RF and SLR accessory lenses, in addition to
slide projectors, underwater camera housings, laboratory equipment, civil and
military binoculars, and aerial cameras and lenses. Current status unknown.

Quality rosette

This quality rosette sometimes appears on newer Soviet cameras, like the Horizon-202, LOMO 135VS, etc. I don't know what it's supposed to guarantee. Apparently it was a standardized logo, since it also appeared on other Soviet products like calculators.

Technointorg

Technointorg, also known as Tento or Vneshtorgizdat, is some kind of Moscow-based export organisation. Oddly, their logo is also found on the export-version Sverdlovsk-4...

Mashpriborintorg

This is Mashpriborintorg's logo. (Incomplete; the original also has white
lettering in the rosette that was a bit hard to draft). Mashpriborintorg was a
trade firm that exported lots of Soviet technical equipment. Its logo is
sometimes found on booklets and quality control stickers. More on Mashy
later!

Yura

This logo is found on the Zorki-Yura, a Zorki-1 commemorating the first
manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin in 1961. According to sources at KMZ, the
Zorki-Yura was actually printed by KMZ in 1961 in an extremely limited edition,
but as you may know the market has been totally spoilt by the many fakes. This
is what the logo looks like.

50 Years of Soviet Power

This logo (which isn't complete; the original also has some Cyrillic
calligraphy that was a bit hard to draft) appeared on a batch of 1967 Zorki-4's to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the
October Revolution.

Moscow Olympics 1980

This logo is found on a lot of cameras from around 1980, and is meant to
commemorate the 1980 olympics in Moscow, Russia. For more information see the dedicated Moscow '80 page.

The logo is a stylized version of the Spasskaya Tower in Moscow, the main
tower of the Kremlin.